


Riding on the Wind and I Won't Give Up

by thesnicken



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: I've never been there so sorry if this is a horrendous portrayal of amsterdam, M/M, POV Changes, Wedding Day, a load of ot5 love, also very very minor background ziam, but I split it in two cause it was getting a little long, cause apparently they don't have any other friends, cause why not, everything is chaos, harry and louis' families also make minor appearances, harry freaks out, he ever loses or forgets everything, i don't know why the fuck they give him so much responsibility, i mean larry are getting married what do you expect, liam probably freaks out the most, louis freaks out, more ot5 than larry tbh, niall fucks everything up, not important i promise, oh no niall, so zayn isnt in the band but he comes back for the wedding, so zayn's a nervous baby, the boys are also their best men and their witnesses, the only people at the wedding ar their families and the boys, the original characters are basically just security and people working for management, they don't really explore the city much anyways, they haven't seen zayn since he left, they may kiss in the second chapter but idk, they're getting married in amsterdam cause thats where alison told me to set it, this is pretty much set now, was originally one part, zayn is just sort of nervous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnicken/pseuds/thesnicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Louis and Harry had agreed on the secret wedding, the idea had seemed romantic, exciting even. Now, it was less so. What was intended to be a beautiful yet quiet expression of their love was fastly turning into the disaster of the century.</p><p>Liam was being terrorised at the studio and couldn’t get out, Niall had lost the rings and his speech and the address for the florist, Zayn was in the wrong country, Louis had gone to pick up the cake and got mobbed by fans, paparazzi were beginning to swell outside, their families were stranded at the airport, and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing hit twitter. Oh, and Harry was about a second away from a break down (And his trousers didn’t fit).</p><p>Maybe the spontaneous wedding wasn’t quite the dream they had pictured.  More of a nightmare, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ceremony

The night Louis and Harry had agreed on the secret wedding, the idea had seemed romantic, exciting even. Now, it was less so. What was intended to be a beautiful yet quiet expression of their love was fastly turning into the disaster of the century.

Liam was being terrorised at the studio and couldn’t get out, Niall had lost the rings and his speech and the address for the florist, Zayn was in the wrong country, Louis had gone to pick up the cake and got mobbed by fans, paparazzi were beginning to swell outside, their families were stranded at the airport, and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing hit twitter. Oh, and Harry was about a second away from a break down (And his trousers didn’t fit).

Maybe the spontaneous wedding wasn’t quite the dream they had pictured.  More of a nightmare, really.

Harry hopelessly scrolled through the array of texts he had received in the past five minutes. They all described wildly different circumstances but they all had one thing in common, they were all pleas for Harry’s help. Most of them could not be helped by Harry’s assistance. Zayn should be on his plane by now and would land in about an hour, so that was fine. Niall was pretty much a hopeless case and Harry couldn’t really save Liam. As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t really do anything for Louis either. Two grooms getting mobbed in a cake shop was a considerably worse scenario than one groom getting mobbed in a cake shop. Harry just had to trust them all to care of themselves (which probably wasn’t the best plan).

What he could do was get their families from the airport to the hotel. He called on one of the security guards who was in on the whole situation and asked if he could arrange for a couple of cars to go to the airport. Harry would go himself, but he was pretty much on total lockdown after what had happened will Louis at the cake shop. He was sure it would be fine, though. For today, he actually trusted their management more than his friends and family when it came to organisation.

It wasn’t exactly as if management was thrilled about the wedding, in fact they pretty much detested it. Harry and Louis hadn’t intended to tell anyone from Modest about it at first, but it would pretty much impossible to get their families and Zayn over from England to to Amsterdam where they had a few days off for the wedding. So they were forced to tell them.

In the end, it hadn’t been so bad. They could get married as long as the bare minimum number of people were told and invited. They also couldn’t have anytime off for a honeymoon, what with being in the middle of a tour (which, admittedly, probably wasn’t the best time for a wedding) and pretty much immediately after the wedding, Harry would start seeing a random female celebrity of Modests choice and Louis would have to get a new “girlfriend.” It wasn't ideal, but it was nothing they hadn’t dealt with before. In fact, it seemed like rather a small repayment when they could finally get married.

With one problem checked off Harry list, he turned to the next item requiring his attention, his lack of trousers.

* * *

Louis couldn’t believe this was happening. It was actually ridiculous. He went out in public often enough and sure, there would be the odd fan who asked for a picture. Maybe one or two crying girls. He had been prepared for that. But this? On today of all days?

Part of him thought that maybe it had been organised. Had Modest tipped off the paparazzi that Louis would be at the shop? It wasn’t that insane a thought. Not that it mattered now, he just had to find a way to get the fuck out and make it to his own goddamn wedding on time.

The lone security guard he had with him was patrolling back and forth next to the door, waiting for the car to arrive that would whisk Louis out of the building and back to the hotel. Meanwhile, Louis tried to enjoy the one silver lining that came with being stuck in a cake shop and decided to sample as many of their products as possible.

The manager of the store was kind enough to Louis’ face, but he could see his growing discontent at the situation ( _you and me both, mate_ , Louis wanted to say when he saw him once again checking his watch again and frowning). Louis couldn’t exactly blame the guy. His shop had basically just been shut down and turned into a refuge for some celebrity that he had probably never heard of.

Still, it bugged Louis the way he smile to his face then scowled and muttered something in Dutch the second Louis back was turned. _Do you have no idea how much business you’re going to get ater this?_ Louis almost said, but it was perhaps a little too snobbish a thing to say to someone who Louis had already caused such a great inconvenience for.

The only other person in the store was a girl, perhap twenty or so, who stood at the til. She was considerably kinder. Louis suspected, based on the way she kept smiling broadly at him in a maniacal way each time he asked for more cake, that her kindness was due to her being a fan rather than a sunny personality. Perhaps it was both, who knew.

Either way, he didn’t particularly mind listening to her giggles and strong accent while he tasted all the sweets on offer. Under different circumstances, it might of been a rather pleasant moment. However, that was not the case as all Louis could think about was how distressed Harry’s voice had sounded when they had spoken a few minutes before. He had been going on about his trousers not fitting around his thighs (which Louis didn’t see as a problem, more of a perk, really) but Louis had gotten the sense that it was more than just the trousers that were bothering Harry.

Louis tried to block out the sound of Harry’s voice in his head and focus on the girl instead. The manager had momentarily disappeared, so she had whipped out her phone and was typing something quickly. Probably telling a friend that she was trapped in a shop with Louis Tomlinson. It didn’t really matter who she told, everyone in the city seemed to be outside the shop already.

When she put her phone down, she looked at Louis like she wanted to ask a question but wasn’t sure if she should. Louis thought he may as well prompt her into saying what she had to say.

“What is it?” He asked as he finished the profiteroles he had tried. She looked at him, nervously.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “I was just wondering who you were on the phone to earlier.

“I was just talking to some people from my management team,” Louis lied. “Trying to arrange a team to come pick me up.”

“Really? Cause it sounded to me like you were talking to Harry.”

Oh fuck.

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

“You said his name.”

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Yeah, I was talking to all the guys. They all just wanted to make sure I’m okay.”

He was pretty sure that not a single part of that had sounded convincing, but what else could he do? The girl seemed content enough with his answer and went back to her phone.

Louis felt the beginning tinges of nerves creeping up on him and desperately tried to suppress them. Nerves were pointless and entirely unnecessary in this situation. Louis knew beyond any form of doubt (and always had) that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Harry. He also knew that Harry felt exactly the same way. Nothing could change that for either of them, so why was Louis beginning to panic ever so slightly?

Maybe it was just Louis’ imagination, but he could swear the crowd outside was getting thicker and louder, adding the the many hurdles Louis had to face on his way to happiness and Harry. He knew that security and a car would be able to get through it all, he had no reason to doubt that, but he was still filled with the crushing fear that he was going to be stuck in this shop forever more.

As time continued to pass and Louis reach the point where he could no longer distract himself with sweets, the mob outside grew stronger. He knew he wasn’t just imagining it anymore, they were banging on the glass and crying with growing urgency.

Louis attempted to ignore it by pulling his phone out and checking twitter. He scrolled through his feed without taking anything in until he began to notice a trend in some of the messages he was being hit with. There were an awful lot of his followers asking him about a wedding cake or Harry or both. Great.

How the fuck had this happened? No one should know that he was buying a wedding cake, the shop made all sorts of cakes. They also shouldn’t know anything him talking to Harry, it wasn’t like they could hear him through the glass.

“Do you want to try something else?” The girl asked, pulling Louis momentarily from his thoughts. “We have some really good pastries.”

Louis stared at her and began to let the pieces slot into place.

“Do you have twitter?” He asked. The girl blinked at him and nodded. “What your username? I’ll follow you.”

She almost smiled at him for a moment before something that looked a lot like fear crept into her eyes.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I mean, I don’t use it a lot. There’s no point in you following me,” She stammered nervously.

“Have you  been tweeting about me?” Louis asked.

Her expression answered that question for him. Clearly, she had not been texting a friend, but telling the world about Louis buying a wedding cake before getting married to Harry Styles. Fantastic. This was exactly what he needed.

There wasn’t anything Louis could really say or do to the girl. He just glared at her and turned away. Hopefully the disapproval of her idol was enough to make her regret her actions. He then sat in silence, his nerves becoming a much stronger now.

The whole thing was growing more stupid by every second. The wedding had been a ridiculous fantasy that currently didn’t seem to have a happy ending. There wasn’t even any real point to them getting married. It wasn’t like they could have some big celebration with all the people they loved. Although Louis would never admit it to anyone other than Harry, he had always really wanted a large wedding with lots of food and guests and a great party.

They had agreed that one day in the (most likely distant) future, they would renew their vows and have a real celebration. Louis was beginning to wonder why they didn’t just wait until then anyway. They weren’t even allowed to wear rings on the traditional finger, and their rings had to look different so that no fans caught on. Not that it mattered seeings as Niall had lost the rings and they most likely would not be found.

For five years, Louis had wanted to be married to Harry Styles. Now, he wasn’t sure if it was worth all the hassle.

* * *

Liam was about to cry. Again. For the third time that day.

He was the sappiest idiot he knew. He had cried when Louis and Harry had told him they were getting married. He had cried when they’d asked him to be a witness for them. Today, he was crying due to the insane amount of stress that was building around him.

It had been arranged that Liam would spend the morning at a studio in Amsterdam, supposedly writing some new tracks for the album. Really, it was just supposed to be a distraction from the events occurring at the hotel. Liam had been fine with that. Happy even, to be able to help a bit. Only he hadn’t been told that a reporter had been invited to do a one on one live interview with him to add to the distraction.

Any other day, Liam would of handled the situation perfectly. He was no stranger to conducting himself well in interviews under stress. But this was a whole other level. Not only was Liam’s mind very much occupied with thoughts of the wedding that was set to take place in just a few hours, but the reporter wasn’t just asking the usual questions, some about the tour, some about the next album, maybe a mention of Zayn’s departure. She was going into some weird questions that Liam didn’t totally understand.

“It seems like a bit of a crazy day here in Amsterdam,” she had said at the start of the interview. Yeah, no shit. “Twitter is going crazy.”

“Yeah? How come?” Liam asked, genuinely oblivious to what twitter drama may be going on.

“Well, where to begin,” she said and she took a pause to put things in order before continuing. Shit. What did she know? “Louis has been mobbed at a cake shop. Apparently he was trying to pick up a wedding cake. Let’s start there shall we?”

Liam had about half a second to process that piece of information before he was expected to reply.

“Wow, I didn’t actually know about that. When we work on music, we tend to cut ourselves off from the internet for a few hours. Helps with the process. So I hadn’t seen anything about that.” he said, truthfully. With interviews, much like interrogations, it was best to stick to the truth as much as possible so you could keep your story straight, a talent that Liam had developed skillfully over the past five years. “Is Louis okay?” He added.

“He’s fine. In fact, a car has now picked him up. ALthough everyone's still rather confused as to why Louis is picking up a wedding cake of all things. There has also been reports that while in the shop, he has spent most of his time on the phone to Harry, sounding rather distressed.”

Fuck, this was not good. Why did Louis have to go pick up the damn cake by himself anyway?

“As I said, I don’t really know what’s going on,” Liam said. A truth. “But as for the cake, Louis’ always had a bit of a sweet tooth.” A truth.

“But why specifically a wedding cake?” This woman just wouldn’t quit.

“I’m not sure why, but Louis’ always had a thing about wedding cakes. Every now and then, he’ll go out and buy himself one and just eat it over the next week or so.” A lie. But Liam thought that starting a rumour about Louis loving wedding cakes was preferable to the truth here. “I think he likes the layers, or the parmesan.”

“Do you mean marzipan? That’s what they put in wedding cakes. Parmesan is a cheese.”

Great. Now Liam had made himself look like an idiot by confusing a fondant with a cheese. Oh well, hopefully the fans would focus on his mistake rather than on his flawed and delayed answers.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. Louis loves the stuff.”

She gave him a questioning, unconvinced look, but she didn’t question it any further.

“There’s also Niall. He was seen at a jewelry store about an hour ago and has since disappeared.”

Liam breathed in deeply, preparing himself to reply, but the woman continued talking.

“And Harry hasn’t been seen all day.”

Liam wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. She wasn’t actually asking any questions. Just making statements and waiting for Liam’s reaction. It was infuriating and it was working well for her.

“Well, as far as I know, Harry’s spending the day in the hotel.” Sort of a truth.

“And Niall?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s getting a nice present for his mum.” A lie.

“Not buying a romantic gift for a special lady?” She prompted.

“I suppose you’d really have to ask Niall that one himself, but it seems unlikely. Niall’s idea of romantic is a kebab and a night clubbing.” That was also a truth.

Liam felt sort of bad for slagging off Niall when he wasn’t even there to defend himself, but it was a necessary evil to protect what was likely the biggest not-so-secret relationship since J.F.K and Marilyn Monroe.

Once again, she looked unsatisfied but moved on.

“The next thing that some fans would like cleared up is this” she began. “Images of the immediate families of Louis and Harry, including their mothers and their siblings, have been taken at an airport here in Amsterdam. Is there any particular reason why they have all arrived here at this time?”

“I can’t exactly say that I keep close tabs on my mates families,” Liam said, probably a little harsher than was wise. “But our families regularly come to see our shows. Every now and then, maybe two or three of our families will arrange to come together.”

“And your family isn’t making an appearance?”

“No, not this time around.”

She seemed to accept this.

“And finally, there’s been another occurrence surrounding airports.” Her voice changed when she said that, like she was about to drop a bomb. “Zayn Malik has been spotted at Heathrow airport and our sources tell us that the plane he boarded is enroute to Amsterdam. Were you aware that your ex bandmate would be visiting the city?”

“No.” A lie. A lie. A massive lie. “I don’t think he mentioned it.”

Liam was aware of how weak his voice sounded. The fans would most likely think he was just upset that Zayn hadn’t told him they’d be in the same city or something like that. Really, the problem was that Zayn was what had been stressing Liam out the most about this whole wedding thing.

Liam made his best effort to keep in touch with Zayn, texting him regularly and calling him once in a while, but they hadn’t actually seen each other since Zayn had left the band. Although no one had actually said anything, they were all ever so anxious about seeing Zayn.

It was just so odd. He was a man that Liam had seen all but a handful of days over the past five years and now he had gone months with minimal contact with him. It was like leaving high school, when the people you have made it through everything with over the last few years disappear without any transition period. Only the events he had gone through with Zayn were highly different to those he had experienced in school.

The new relationship with Zayn also scared them all a bit. It was a prediction for the future. Liam by far had the most contact with him out of all of them and even then, it wasn’t all that much. At the back of their minds, they were all aware that this is how it will be one day for all five of them. Texting regularly at first, then a little less, then they’d see each other once, maybe twice a year. Eventually all they would be to each other would be someone on their christmas card list, someone they caught up with once every few years. Their own equivalent of old college friends you don’t see as much as you’d like to anymore.

Liam couldn’t worry about that right now. he was still in an interview and therefore, still at work.

“Do you think there’s a chance you will get to meet up with him while you’re in the same city?”

“Uhm, I’m not sure. We’ve got a lot planned and I don’t know what Zayn’s schedule is like. I’ll definetly text him and ask what he’s up to, but we’ll just have to see.” It seemed like the safest thing to say. he didn’t really have any other ideas.

Her face changed rapidly from her sharp, almost grimace, into a cheery and fake smile.

“Well, thank you very much for that, Liam.” The she turned to the camera. “We’ll be right back with One Direction’s Liam Payne after this break.”

What? That wasn’t it? How long was this interview going to last?

Liam thought he should ask just that so after the woman had stood up and the camera was off, he turned to first member of his team he saw and asked how much longer they had.

“Another twenty minutes,” replied the guy Liam had asked, Luke was his name. He sounded just as exhausted by the whole thing as Liam did. “I know this interview is crazy but right now, all the fans are focusing on this livestream which is exactly what we need.” Luke lowered his voice considerably and leaned into Liam a bit. “Zayn’s flight is scheduled to land in ten minutes so if we can keep the focus on you until we get him from the airport to the hotel, that’d be great.”

Liam nodded. He could do that. Maybe.

“Do you maybe think it would be possible for you to make her not ask such...difficult questions. I don’t even know what’s really going on. I’m afraid I can’t answer without slipping up.”

“Already done.” Luke replied. “Someone’s talking her right now about directions to move the interview in and topics to avoid. It should just be generic and repetitive questions about the tour from here on out.”

Liam had never been so glad to hear the words “generic and repetitive."

“Meanwhile, you’ve got about three minutes until we’re back on air. I suggest you take a break,” Luke told him.

Liam would do just that. He quickly located the fire exit and stepped outside. He didn’t think he’d ever needed a cigarette more in his life.

* * *

The perks of having a private jet included not being required to wait in an airport for three hours prior to your flight. The downside was that Zayn probably could of done with those three hours in the airport to try to relax.

It was less than two weeks since Zayn had received a call from Louis informing him about the wedding. When Zayn had first picked up his phone to see Louis’ name appear across the screen at 2am, he had panicked.

Louis and Zayn hadn’t exactly spoken since their very public and very embarrassing fight via twitter. After the whole incident, they’d spoken to each other for a bit, ensuring that they both apologised, forgave and made it clear that they had no real conflict with one another.  

Despite the guarantee that there was no bad blood between them, neither of them had made any real attempt at contact since. That was why Zayn had been so worried when Louis finally called him.

“Uhm. Hi, mate.” Louis had began when he called. That had lead to an exchange of awkward small talk that felt more than odd for Zayn and Louis.

Eventually, Louis seemed to snap out of and remember why he had called.

“So, well. The thing is, Harry and I, we sort of made this decision. And it’s a pretty big one and it’s a pretty impulsive, but just why the fuck not? Anyways, what it is is this.” A pause. “We’re gonna get married. Like real soon. Like in two weeks? We’re not sure yet. We’re thinking Amsterdam, we’ve got a couple of nights off around about then so it makes sense.”

“Shit, Louis. That’s amazing! I’m really happy for you guys,” Zayn had said, his prior discomfort surrounding the conversation all but vanished.

“Yeah, yeah it’s great,” Louis had said, Zayn could hear the smile in his voice. “But it’s gonna be a secret. No one knows but family and close friends. There’s only gonna be a handful of people at the wedding. It’ll probably be in the hotel, if we can do that, I don’t know. Can you get married in a hotel? Anyway, it’s just that we can’t exactly get married without you there, can we? So are you free in two weeks? It’d be around the 26th or 27th. If not, well the date isn’t set in stone. We could probably move it.”

Zayn took a moment to reply. He wasn’t sure why he was so touched by what Louis had said. Of course, Zayn wouldn’t think of getting married without Louis and the others there and he knew Louis would feel the same, but it had just sounded so sincere. Plus there was his willingness to change the date of his wedding to fit _Zayn_.

“I’m free then.” Zayn had replied. He wasn't sure if it was actually true or not but if he had anything planned, it could be moved.

“Great,” Louis had said, sounding as if he was breath for the first time in a while, a weight lifted off his chest. “Also another thing, would you maybe want to be a witness? Liam and Niall have already said they’ll do it so if you don’t want to then it’s cool, we technically have enough people. But Harry and I would just really like you to be a part of it too. If that’s cool with you.”

“Of course,” Zayn had said. Without hesitation this time.

The conversation had carried on for some time after that. They talked about the wedding before moving on to other topics that allowed them to exchanged every story they had collected over the past month.

Zayn had come off the phone some time later, relieved that the tension was gone between them. Now, on the plane to Amsterdam, the was the nerves surrounding him and his four ex bandmates creeping up on him again.

It was stupid to be worried about seeing them, he knew that. In fact, seeing them all for the first time in months at the wedding of Louis and Harry was probably the best way to do it. Everyone would be far too focused on the happy couple to consider any potentially strained relationships. Yet Zayn still could stop fidgeting.

He wasn't sure why, but over the past few month, he had developed the need to constantly have his hands occupied. Sometimes, he’d play with a water bottle or a piece of paper or an unlit cigarette. Those around him must of noticed it because his mum had suggested that maybe he take up some form of craft to keep his hands busy.

Zayn had only laughed. He felt sort of pathetic, like an old man who needed to find new hobbies to fill his empty days after retirement (which was sort of exactly what Zayn was now, minus the old part).

Regardless of his protests, his mum had purchased him a loom band kit. Zayn had gotten unintentionally addicted to making them, but he got frustrated with the tiny elastics pinging eveywhere and he didn’t particularly like the end product, leading to most of them being thrown out or taken apart.

Still, Zayn had been forced to admit that, okay, maybe he _did_ need something like that to busy himself with. He had bought some thread and began teaching himself how to make woven bracelets. He had started off with simple ones, fishtail bracelets and such things. Now, he was getting pretty good at it, weaving in different patterns and colours. Everyone around him must of received close to a dozen bracelets each over the past few weeks.  

While he had been waiting in the airport, he’d begun weaving one in a light green colour. Then he’d decided to try and work in some numbers to the design. He still wasn’t all that great at weaving letters and numbers so now seemed as good as any a time to practice.

He realised subconsciously that the colour was somewhat similar to that of Harry’s eyes and decided he may as well embrace that, considering the event he was on his way to. Zayn started weaving in 23-07-10, the date they had been formed as a band. He’d woven the date a lot smaller than he had intended, so he decided he may as well add in todays date, the date Harry and Louis would marry.

It was and insanely cheesy thing to make and Zayn was pretty sure he would throw it out the second his flight landed. But he had about twenty minutes until that happened and another thread the colour of Louis’ eyes. Making another one couldn’t hurt.

* * *

Niall was dead. So so so dead. He wasn’t entirely sure who would be his murderer right now. It could be one of the grooms, but funnily enough, Liam seemed like the most likely culprit. While planning the wedding, (if you could even call it planning, it had more been Harry and Louis picking out about two things and deciding they didn’t need the rest) it had been Liam who stressed out the most about everything.

He had insisted they all go get new suits instead of just wearing one of the many they already own (this had lead to Harry not having trouser that fit him, great job, Liam). He had also tried to force them into going beyond the basics that they wanted, trying to get them to buy flowers, taste an array of foods, look at potential favours and attempting to make them select a full wedding party.

“You, Niall and Zayn are going to be witnesses. Our sisters are going to be unofficial bridesmaids, we don’t need anything else,” Harry had said when Liam had pushed the subject.

“What about best men? What about a flower girl or pageboy or maid of honour?” Liam said, growing more frantic every second.

“If you’re so obsessed with it, then you can be the best man, Liam,” Louis sighed from his slouched position on the sofa in their tour bus.

“What about me?” Niall had piped in.

“You can be one too,” said Harry as he leaned against his fiance. “Zayn as well, if he wants to.”

“Who’s best man for who?” Liam asked.

Louis had shrugged.

“You can all be the best man for both of us,” said Harry.

“What? That’s ridiculous. You get one best man per groom. You can’t have _three each!_ ”

“Fine then,” Louis said, sitting up quickly. “You’re not a best man. We’ll flip a coin to decide who gets Niall and who gets Zayn.”

“What? No, you can’t do that!” Liam protested.

“Why not? Our wedding, our choice.” Harry lazily remarked.

They had left Liam to wail in the corner for the following hours until he had given in and accepted that he would be the best man and witness for both Harry and Louis, along with Niall and Zayn.

He hadn’t gotten off Niall’s back since then, harassing him about his speech, his responsibilities etc, etc. Niall felt greatly sorry for Liam’s fututre wife, he hated to think what Liam would be like come the day of his own wedding. Niall had greatly hoped that Zayn would turn up a few days early so that Liam would get off his back and pester Zayn for a bit. He had no such luck as Zayn was still not in the country.

But right now, Liam was the least of his worries. Right now, he had to find these fuckign rings.

He didn’t get where they could of gone, he really didn’t. Niall had picked up the rings from the jewelry store, on time, and had put the box in the back pocket of his jeans. Niall had always sworn that there was no safer place in the world to carry things than the back pocket of your jeans, perhaps that belief was being disproved today as the box (and the rings) were nowhere to be found.

They were also attempting to find the florists (Liam had stood his ground on the flower thing and made sure that they at least has buttonholes). They had been given an address, which Niall had lost, and now they were pretty much helplessly roaming around Amsterdam, hoping that this florists would magically show itself to them, or that Harry would text him the address.

The latter was what happened first and the address was quickly pumped into the satnav before the headed off towards it.

They came to a car park that was next to the florists. Fortunately, it  was pretty closed off from everything surrounding them, so it should be a while before any paparazzi showed up. Besides, from what Niall understood, most attention was still on Liam and his interview and no one had been able to catch up with Niall since he had left the jewelry shop.

While the final touches were being added to the flowers, Niall and the woman from management he was with, Lucy was her name, searched the car from top to bottom.

“Have you check all around the dashboard?” Lucy asked him once more.

“Yes.”

“And under the seats?”

“Yes.”

“And in the boot?”

“Yes, Lucy. We’ve checked all these places half a dozen times now.

“Shit. Shit. Okay.”

She was beginning to turn ever so slightly frantic, her yellow curls bobbing around her head. She could give Liam a run for his money when it came to not being very good at handling wedding stress.

“What about your speech, have you found that yet?”

“Nope,” he moaned. Niall was possibly more worried about losing the speech than the rings. Sure, the rings were worth a fortune both in money and sentimental value and couldn’t really be replaced, but Niall had spent so long on that damn speech. He didn’t know what the fuck he’d do without it.

“The rings must have fallen out at the shop,” Niall said.

Lucy nodded her head as if the news was of comfort to her. Niall didn’t see why. If the box had fallen out of his pocket before he had even left the shop, they were okay. But if they had fallen out between the shop and the car, they were fucked. By now, someone must of picked them up and ran off with them. He couldn’t say he blamed them, they were rather nice rings, Niall quite fancied one himself.

“I’ll call the store,” Lucy said. She seemed glad to have something to do.

As she began chatting quickly in Dutch over the phone, a colleague of hers appeared with the flowers. At least that was one thing that went down without a hitch. Niall helped him sit them in the boot while Lucy wrapped up her conversation.

“Okay, so, they say they’ve not seen anything but they’re going to search the store and have a look outside as well to see if they can spot anything,” She said while forgetting to breath.

“That’s good,” Niall told himself. “Should we start heading back to the hotel now or wait until they get back to us.

“I think we ought to go to the hotel,” Lucy said, sounding slightly calmer now. “Zayn’s flight should've just landed so if we can get you out there, hopefully get the press to catch up with us as we go, then hopefully we can distract them with you going in the front entrance as Zayn slips into the back.”

“I could make a really dirty joke out of that, but it’s a wedding so I won’t,” Niall commented.

A few minutes into the drive, (and somehow the paparazzi had already found them, Niall wondered if maybe Lucy had tipped them off with a tweet or something) Lucy’s phone started ringing. She picked it up so quickly she almost dropped it and once again began speaking Dutch.

It was a short call and Lucy’s face remained tight and worried for most of it.

“So there’s good news and bad news,” she told him.

“Bad news first.”

“The bad news is that they haven’t found the wedding rings for your friends that are worth half a million pounds.”

Niall felt rather sick.

“Okay, what’s the good news.”

“The good news is that they found a folded up piece of paper covered in tomato sauce stains with some notes written in English on it in bad handwriting. Is that your speech?”

“Yes! Yes it is!”

“Fantastic! Okay I’ll send someone to pick that up.”

Finding the speech was a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless.

* * *

Harry was forced to abandon the wedding suite and instead, found a pair of smart navy trousers to wear. They didn’t have a blazer to go with them and the one Harry had been intending to wear didn’t match, so he would have to get married in just the trousers and his white shirt. Not that it mattered, everything about this wedding was pretty unconventional anyway.

The trouser problem was solved, the families had arrived, Zayn was on his way, Liam’s interview was wrapping up and Niall had found both the florist and his speech. Harry tried to focus on these things and not the fact that Niall still hadn’t located the rings or that Louis still hadn’t returned, despite having been picked up from the cake shop some time ago.

He also tried not to think about the growing frenzy on twitter and the growing crowd outside. Of course, the fans had spent hours analysing the going ons of the day and for the most part, they had been way of the mark with their conclusions. A while ago, there had been a few jokes that maybe Louis and Harry were getting married, what with their families flying out here and the whole wedding cake thing. That had been it. Just a joke.

But somehow, people were suddenly beginning to talk about a wedding a lot more. In fact, _#LarryStylinsonWedding_ was trending and Harry was freaking the fuck out. Due to this development, there were now a lot more people outside the hotel. _A lot more people_.

Harry aimlessly scrolled through twitter, searching hopelessly for a source to all this. His mum sat next to him and tried to take his phone off of him with minimal success.

“You need to stop making things worse for yourself,” she told him. “Everyone feels like everything is going wrong on their wedding day. It will all work out beautifully.”

Harry was beginning to let himself fall into that illusion when the door swung open. Harry looked up, hoping to see Louis or anyone else with good news. Instead, he found Andrew, one of the most senior employees at Modest, standing before him. Harry couldn’t really think of a single time when he’d been glad to see Andrew, but right now was worse than ever.

“Harry,” he began as he strolled forward, buttoning up his blazer as he walked. “Would you care to explain this?” He held up his phone to Harry and even from a far, Harry knew it was displaying the same twitter tag loaded on Harry’s own phone.

“Honestly, I was hoping you could explain it to me,” Harry replied.

“You don’t have anything to do with the fans believing that you’re getting married today?”

Harry hated the way he said it, like it was all a lie. Like Harry _wasn’t_ getting married that day.

“No.”

“And what about Louis? Was he a part of this?”

“Not that I know of. We haven’t spoken in a while.”

The way Harry said “a while” made it sound like they hadn’t communicated in about five years when really, it had just been twenty minutes. The silence from Louis freaked him out a bit though, but that was most likely just wedding paranoia.

“Can I see your phone, Harry?” Andrew asked. Harry had never lied directly to his face, yet Andrew still wouldn’t believe him. He unwillingly handed his phone over with a sigh.

Andrew, who already knew all of Harry's passwords, unlocked it and began quickly scrolling through his phone. His eyes were dark as he did so, but his expression changed slightly after a while.

“What is this?” Andrew asked, handing Harry’s phone back to him.

The screen showed the group text Harry had sent earlier. He stared at the screen with confusion. After several more seconds, he realised his small yet fatal mistake.

“So, uhm. I sent a mass text to everyone involved in the wedding saying that I was sending cars to pick up our families at the airport and I may of accidentally sent it to everyone in my contacts? And their may be a chance that someone who received that text has gone to the press…”

“So? That just means everyone knows we’re here. They already knew that,” his mum said.

“Read them the exact wording of the texts,” Andrew demanded and Harry got the feeling he was enjoying this moment rather a lot. Harry still did as he said.

“Sending cars to pick up families. They should get to hotel soon. See you all at the wedding.”

 _The wedding_. Harry had been stupid enough to say the wedding and then send the text to everyone he knew. Fucking fantastic. 

“No one can prove that it’s our wedding that I’m talking about,” Harry said. “Or that the text is even real.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, we will be quick to tell everyone it’s a fake. It was just a fan making something up to fit in with the rumours in the hopes of gaining a few more followers. That doesn't excuse the fact that you fucked up.” The words were so grossly harsh coming from Andrew’s mouth. Harry could not deal with this right now.

“Fine. So I go on an extra date with some girl to make up for it. Or I kiss her in broad daylight or do something that will enhance my womanizer image to make up for this. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Just fix this crap and give me my fucking day.” Harry was spitting out his words by the time he was done and the venom in his voice must of hit Andrew cause he seemed to back off ever so slightly.

“I’ll hold you to that, Harry,” He hissed back before sulking out of the room.

Harry needed a distraction from everything and he needed it fast.

* * *

 

Niall and Zayn arrived at the hotel almost simultaneously. It was like clock work. Niall felt sort of proud of himself for that, despite having nothing to do with the timing of their arrival and considering that everything he had done today had gone wrong.

He was rushed past the unusually large crowd outside the hotel and quickly inside. They didn’t stop scurrying until he was at the lift and Niall didn’t really watch where he was going so when the doors to the lift opened, he walked straight into Zayn.

Niall looked at him for a moment before pulling him forward into a spine crushingly tight hug.

“Zayn, I’ve missed your boney arse so much,” Niall muttered against Zayn’s neck.

“I’ve missed you too, Niall.”

“Your hair looks awful, mate,” Niall commented lightly.

Zayn laughed.

"You're just angry cause you're not the only blond anymore.”

They didn’t let go of each other as the lift rose up and when the doors opened, they strolled towards Harry’s room together while still pressing themselves as close to one another as was possible when walking.

Harry had been moved from the room he had spent last night in to what Niall guest was some sort of bridal suite. Everything was white and lace. The walls, the curtains, the furniture. All of it white except for the accents of pink and gold that decorated the ceiling and wood work. Amongst all that white was an even whiter looking Harry. His head was bent over his phone, his leg was shaking while his mother sat by his side, trying to calm him down.

Niall was rather happy to see Harry’s face regain just a smidge of colour and warmth when he looked up and saw them. He stood up and made his way over to Niall and Zayn, hugged them both quickly and went straight to business. Niall supposed the catching up and cuddles with Zayn would have to wait until later.

"Please tell me you have my ring in your pocket right now," said Harry, rubbing at his temples with his eyes closed. 

"I wish I could tell you that, I really do," Niall replied, throwing out his hands in defeat. 

Harry made a weirdly intimidating wailing sound and turned around, heading towards the window. Then he seemed to remember just how many people were outside, wailed some more and turned back to Niall.

“I’m so sorry, Harry. I will absolutely pay you back for the rings.”

“Look, Niall. It’s not about how much the rings cost. It’s not even exactly about the rings themselves. It’s just that we’ve got to do this whole thing as a big secret and we can’t even have all the people we want here or express ourselves how we want. The rings were our _one chance_ to symbolise the truth. We just wanted some sort of object that we can have with us all the time, just to help us get through it, y’know?”

Niall bowed his head like a scolded school boy. Now he _really_ felt like shit. 

“Uhm, I might be able to help,” Zayn muttered as he shifted beside Niall and dug his hand into his pocket. “It’s probably not a good idea. Kind of stupid really. But I keep making these bracelet things and on the plane I made these ones.”

He handed Harry two matching bracelets in different colours. Harry took them gently with wide eyes and began to turn them over in his hands

“I wasn’t sure if I was gonna give them to you or not. But maybe you could like, just wear them for today? Just so you have something to exchange for the ceremony, then you can get other rings or something proper,” said Zayn, nervously. 

“Is that the date the band was formed written on these? And today's date as well?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, I wasn’t totally sure of the day you guys met so I reckoned that’s the next best thing. The day that fate pushed you together, or whatever. Then I still had loads of room so I thought I may as well add the date of your wedding.”

“They’re the colour of our eyes as well,” Harry whispered.

“I thought maybe you could give Louis the green one and he gives you the blue one.”  

Harry stood for a long moment, still turning the bracelets over in his hands, the corners of his mouth turning up into the beginnings of a smile. Zayn must not have noticed the immense joy that was fastly filling Harry’s eyes as he continued to fidget nervously next to Niall.

“Don’t think that you have to wear them just cause I made them, or whatever. They’re not that great. I’m not sure they’re even big enough.”

“Zayn, they’re perfect,” Harry cried as he grabbed Zayn’s shirt and pulled him into a hug, his fist still clutching around the bracelets. Niall got the feeling that Zayn would have a lot of hugs forced upon him today, not that he seemed to mind all that much.

Niall stood back slightly, but Harry pulled at him too the second he began to move away. The three of them stood there, just fitting together they way it always had been and Niall felt a wave of relief fall over him. He had been terrified that the fiasco with the rings would ruin Harry and Louis’ day, he’d worried that they’d end just thinking of him as useless after the morning. Harry’s hug made it clear that that was not the case. They all loved each other too damn much, warts and all.

“Are you lot having a group hug without me?” Liam called from the door.

When they realised he was there, they broke off their hug momentarily to attack Liam. It was a good thing Liam was as strong as he was (and used to being attacked in such a manner) or he might have been knocked to the ground my them.

Instead, he just pulled them all closer so that Harry and Liam had their arms sheltering around them all from the outside while Niall and Zayn clustered together inside the circle of their arms, like penguins huddling together for warmth.  

They all giggled together and Niall noted the way Zayn’s face shone when he looked at Liam. Great. Niall was going to be surrounded by _two_ annoying couples today, just like old times. Only now one of those couples hadn’t seen each other in months and the other were getting married. Niall was going to have to find someone who was free for a dance just to distract himself from all the disgustingness that was sure to occur tonight.

Although the moment was sweet, it was also not quite right. It got uncomfortable after a while, with elbows digging into hips. Niall knew they were all feeling the same way. It was weird without Louis.

“Is no one with Louis?” Liam asked, clearly having just thought the same thing as Niall. “Is the poor bloke just stuck in the next room by himself?”

They all pulled away and Harry frowned at Liam.

“He’s not back yet. He should of arrived back here over half an hour ago,” said Harry. The panic was clear on his face as they all turned serious.

“I take it you’ve tried to get in contact with him,” said Liam.

“Yeah. He’s not answering his phone or any of my texts. I managed to get through to the security guard he’s with. He just said that they’d been held up and should be here soon. That’s all I’ve gotten from them for the past half hour.”

They were quiet as they all considered what to do. It was Zayn who offered a plan of action.

“Niall and Liam need to go get ready, you guys go do that now. Harry, you need to stay off your fucking phone and chill. Just find something to occupy yourself with, go over the plans for the ceremony or something. Also, the flowers need to be dealt with. I’m gonna deal with our runaway groom.”

Runaway groom was perhaps not the best of phrases for Zayn to select, considering the face Harry made in reaction. Niall quickly grabbed Harry and began to pull him out of the room to go get the flowers while Zayn ran off on what would hopefully be a successful quest.

* * *

 

Zayn dialled Louis' number and prayed for him to answer. He wasn't sure what he would do if Louis didn't pick up, his plan hadn't evolved that far yet. By some form of miracle, Louis picked up on the fifth ring.  
  
"Zayn? When did you land, are you at the hotel?"Louis asked. Typical Louis. Opening with a question to deflect focus from himself.  
  
"Yeah, I'm at the hotel which is exactly where you should be right now as well," Zayn replied, making it clear as soon as possible that he had absolutely no intention of taking Louis' bullshit.   
  
Louis was quiet for too long and Zayn grew worried that he might hang up. Instead, he decided to lie to Zayn.  
  
"We've just gotten held up. The mob has made it difficult to get through the streets. We'll be there soon."   
  
"Bullshit," Zayn said. Once again, Louis didn't reply so Zayn continued. "Tell me where you are. I won't tell anyone else, not even Harry."   
  
Zayn could practically feel the way Louis tensed at the mention of Harry's name.  
  
"Can we just talk?" Zayn added. "I haven't seen you in so long, I just want to catch up."   
  
"You promise you won't tell anyone?" Louis sounded just a tad pathetic, but Zayn reckoned now was probably not the best time to mock him for it.   
  
"I promise."  
  
"Okay. I'm at this park. It's just a couple of minutes from the hotel." Louis tried to pronounce the name of the park and did a fabulous job of messing it up. It didn't matter, Zayn would find him. He quickly asked a hotel employee where the nearest parks were and they directed him towards him towards one that was just a five minute walk away. He headed out the back and walked there.  
  
It was still a novelty for Zayn to wander around without requiring a full entourage of security. of course, he was still regularly hunted out by a gaggle of paparazzi, but that was decreasing every day.   
  
Today was not quite like that. It seemed like every photographer in the Netherlands was focused on the hotel. Fortunately, that meant that after Zayn had securely left the hotel, his chances of being caught were slimmer.  
  
The park he found was beautiful and green. Colourful flowers decorated the area, cyclists rode along stone paths, kids pushed a ball back and forth on the grass, and a canal cut through the park smoothly, pulling tourists towards it. The whole thing was all very pleasant. The only problem being that the park was fucking huge. How was he supposed to find one small man amongst all this?

He decided the best course of action was to call Louis again.

“Where are you?” Zayn asked.

“I already told you. I’m in the park,” Louis replied.

“I know that, I’m here too. What I need to know is wheret eh fuck in this massive park you’ve decided to hide yourself.”

“Right. Yeah, it’s pretty big. Uhm, I’m in the kids bit? With like the swings and stuff.”

Zayn then continued his search for Louis. Luckily, the kids play area was pretty easy to spot. It was far nicer than the play parks Zayn had grown up around with broken swings and rusty slides. This park was glistening. Zip Wires, roundabouts, an abundance of swings.

The place was bursting with kids (as was to be expected on a Saturday morning at the end of term) which was going to make it a little difficult to search around the area for Louis without looking like a creep.

He did his best to stroll around while trying not to raise any suspicion. He noticed a small purple play house with fake flowers in the window boxes that a lot of kids walked past, looking confused. Zayn then noticed the man in black, standing a few feet away from the house, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, Zayn recognised him as one of his old security guards, Callum. He must be babysitting Louis and judging by the look on his face, he wans’t particularly enjoying it.

Zayn must of caught Callum’s eye while he walked over as he looked up at Zayn with relief.

“Zayn, it’s great to see you,” he said. “Please tell me you’re here to talk some sense into that idiot.”

“Great to see you too, mate. And yeah, I need to talk to Louis. Is he in there?” Zayn motioned towards the play house.

“Yup. Been in there for the past twenty minutes. He won’t get up.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t know. He was fine earlier. All excited about getting the cake and everything. Then I guess he was left alone with his thoughts for too long when we were stuck in the shop. When we were driving back to the hotel, he freaked out, demanded that we stop the car. Then he got out and ran here. Must of gotten cold feet or something, which is pretty fucking stupid considering that him and Styles have been practically married since the day they met.”

It was stupid. Insanely so. Zayn was just going to have to make that clear to Louis.

He ducked down into the little house and found a rather quaint picture. There was a wooden oven and neat worktops below empty cupboards. A small wooden table with two chairs rested next to the window that could be locked from the inside with a small hatch The walls were lilac and the ceiling was painted with flowers. Amongst it all, sitting scrunched up against the oven, was Louis.

Zayn sighed deeply while pulling out one of the miniature chairs and throwing himself down on it. He sat there, examining his nails and waiting for Louis to make the first move.

“Hey,” Louis said eventually, meekly and quiet.

“Hey? All you’ve got to say is _hey_? Everyone is freaking out! You’ve disappeared hours before your own wedding! We’ve all spent the day worrying and trying to make sure nothing else goes wrong and you’ve just vanished! What is going on, Louis?”

Louis bowed his head in shame. Good. Tough love was always the way to get through to him.

“I know, I’m stupid and everyone is worried and I’m fucking everything up. I just can’t...seem to make myself move. No matter how hard I try.”

“Are you really trying all that hard?”

Louis considered his reply for a moment.

“I don’t know, probably not. I’m just scared.”

“Of moving?”

“Yeah. And what happens after I move.”

Louis’ voice grew smaller with every word. It was a painful contrast to how Louis usually was, loud and unapologetic. Zayn would have to return him to that before even thinking of getting him married.

“You’re scared of the wedding. What part of it?” Perhaps if Zayn could find the source of this fear, he could eradicate it.

“I’m not sure. It started as one thing, then it all sort of escalated. I was just thinking that it all seems sort of pointless. What’s the point of us getting married now? We can’t celebrate like we want to, we can’t even have all our friends and family here. In a couple of days we’re back on tour and we’ve got to act like nothing’s happened.”

Zayn nodded and leaned forward in his chair, waiting for Louis to continue.

“And now I just...I’m not sure I can do it.”

“Get married? Louis, you’re so ridiculously in love, why would you doubt that.”

“Oh no, that’s not the issue,” Louis said quickly, sitting up a little from his slouched position. “I love Harry and we’ve been through so much. The whole commitment thing doesn’t scare me, in fact it’s sort of the opposite. We’ve been lying for so long and honestly, I don’t think I can do it anymore, especially now we’re doing this. Do you have any idea what it’s like to spend most of your time acting like your boyfriend doesn’t exist to you? Or that he’s no more than a colleague? What’s it gonna be like when I’ve got to ignore my _husband_? How is that going to help us have a happy and healthy marriage?” 

Zayn couldn’t exactly argue with anything Louis was saying, especially considering that he was in no position to defend anything management made them do, what with having left three months ago.

“Louis, you’re right. It’s all fucked up and it always has been. I can’t say or do anything to solve that right now. But you do realise this is exactly what they want, right? For you or Harry to get freaked out and call it all off or something. I'm willing to bet that Modest arranged that mob, they were probably behind some of the other things that have gone wrong today too. You and Harry, you’re so strong, also really annoying, but mostly strong. Getting married is only going to increase that.”

Louis was listening closely, but he still didn’t look convinced.

“Look at it this way,” Zayn continued. “At the moment, you’re together but you’re still sort of divided. When you’re married, you can act as a united front against management. Just stand next to each other when they tell you not to and laugh together and talk on stage. They’ll make life hell for you if you do that but you guys just have to make it worse for them. So what if they force you to do a couple of staged dates with some girl for the press? They’ll do that whether you get married or not. Wouldn’t it be better to know you can come home from that to a husband who loves you?"

Slowly, Louis nodded. Zayn could see him mentally weighing the pro’s and con’s of it all, he already knew what would prevail. On one hand, there was management, a public image to maintain and pressure on all fronts to conform, on the other hand was Harry. The latter would always win over all else for Louis.

“I want it so bad, so much it’s sort of painful. But it’s cruel. Not just for me, but for Harry. How can I marry someone knowing the suffering it’s gonna bring us? I can’t hurt Harry, I can never hurt Harry. Marrying him is going to do that, sooner or later.”

“Of course it’s going to hurt Harry, and you too. Even if you weren’t members of the biggest boyband of all time, it would still hurt. Do you think marriage for normal people is just some long happy stream of peace? No matter what steps you take or how hard you try, it is inevitable that Harry will on multiple occasions be hurt, sometimes even by you. Now what do you think would hurt Harry more, facing the difficulties and pressures of his current position with you by his side to help him through, or not having you at all? Being forced to deal with the pain of you abandoning him while still making it through a tour and everything else where you will be stood in the same room as him, distant and uncaring.”

“I would never be uncaring towards Harry,” Louis snapped.  

“Well that’s what it’ll feel like if you’re not and that hotel in an hour and a half.”

Louis chewed at his lip and frowned.

“I hate it when you’re right, Malik,” he muttered. Zayn couldn’t help but smile just a little. “It’s good to see you, by the way. I forgot to say that. Got too caught up in my own bullshit.”

“Good to see you too, Louis. I missed you. Now are we going to get you to your wedding on time or what?”

Louis sighed loudly and said “Yeah, alright then.” As if Zayn had just asked him if he wanted another cup of tea.

* * *

“Why are the flowers pink?” Louis asked as Liam ferociously pinned a flower to Louis’ label.

“They’re not pink, they’re coral. It goes with your navy suit,” Liam replied, sharply.

“Whatever you say, mate. Looks pretty pink to me.”

“If you wanted a say in the flowers you should of showed interest in them two weeks ago.”

“Hey, I never said I didn’t like them. Just said they’re pink, is all.”

“They’re not fucking pink!” Liam looked ready to burst, it was a little intimidating.

“Alright, they’re not pink, they’re coral! Liam, please chill for a moment. This is a nice, happy occasion and it would sort of suck if you passed out cause you forgot to breath or something.”

Liam did as he was told and took several deep breaths.

“I’m sorry. I’m being a control freak and it’s not even my own wedding and I need to step back and relax,” Liam said. “It’s only that you guys can’t have some big beautiful celebration which is what a wedding _should_ be and that’s stupid. I just want to make it as special as possible.”

“I know, Liam, and I really appreciate it,” Louis told him. “But I’m getting _married_ and all the most important people in my life are here. It’s already special. You don’t need to kill yourself with stress to make it even more so.”

Liam nodded with his brow furrowed.

“You’re right, I’ll calm down now. It’s just been a pretty stressful day. Besides, you’re seconds away from walking down the aisle, nothing can go wrong anymore.”

“Liam, please don’t challenge the universe in that way."

“Right. Probably not the best idea after how today has gone. I better go take my seat now. See you on the other side,” Liam said with a slap to Louis’ arm before walking off through the door and leaving him alone.

In real life, Louis knew that he was only left standing by himself for little over thirty seconds. In his head, it felt far longer than that.

There was quiet chatter coming from through the large wooden door that stood before Louis. He tried to focus on that noise, attempting to pick out individual voices and words, instead of hearing the thumping in his heart. He was about as successful at that as he had been at trying to not lose his shit earlier.

Louis closed his eyes and spun around a couple of times while trying to prevent his shaking. It was during his third spin that he heard a quiet, sharp, snort of laughter.

He opened his eyes quickly, ready to snap at whoever dared to laugh at his nerve management techniques, when he saw Harry standing at the other side of the room.

He must of solved the trouser problem as he was not just wearing boxers (much to Louis’ disappointment) and instead, wore well fitted navy trousers and a white shirt with an unseemly amount of buttons undone. His hair was in a bun, just loose enough that a few strands threatened to fall down and brush against his face.

“Are you mocking me, Styles?” Louis asked in his best attempt at a causal voice.

“I would never,” Harry smiled back. “You’re just too adorable when you’re nervous.”

Louis felt himself blush excessively. How was it that after all this time, this boy could still have such an effect on Louis while trying so little?

“You look indecent,” Louis commented, waving loosely towards Harry’s shirt.

“My blazer didn’t go with these trousers,” Harry said with a frown, looking down at himself.

“That’s not what I mean. I’m referring to your lack of buttons.” Louis moved over to him and pulled at Harry’s shirt, begining to do up the buttons, slowly. “I’m not having any nipslip wedding photos.”

Harry laced his fingers into the belt hoops on Louis’ trousers as he allowed him to sort out his shirt. Louis could feel Harry’s breath on his forehead, it was a gentle yet distracting reminded of exactly what they were about to do.

“We’re clashing,” Harry murmured.

“What do you mean? We’re both in navy.” Louis asked, looking up as he did up the last button. Harry rolled his neck uncomfortably at the sudden tightness around his neck.

“Doesn’t mean we match. We’re wearing two different shades of the same colour, it looks bad.” Harry looked mildly pissed off over the trouser clash and Louis just couldn’t have that.

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna care all that much, to be honest. Besides I’m gonna tear your trousers off you in a few hours no matter what you’re wearing, and it was Liam who made us get new suits, we can just blame this on him.”

“Good plan. Can we blame all the days problems on other people?” Harry asked with a smile just strong enough to bring out the beginnings of his dimples.

“Well, losing the rings was Niall’s fault, the mob was probably management, the trousers was Liam. I think we can be justified in our blaming of everyone else. We just have to wait for Zayn to fuck up tonight and we’ve got a full house.”

“What about you disappearing for an hour? Was that someone else's fault as well?” Harry asked, his voice growing somber.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you. I just sort of freaked out,” said Louis, his head bowed.

“About what? Did you have like...second thoughts about us or something?” Harry was trying to hide to pain in his voice at the thought of Louis doubting them, but Louis could still hear it clearly.

“No! I would never question how much I love you or how much I want to marry you. I was being an idiot, I just needed to get my head round a couple of things. I’m okay now, I’m ready.”

“What did you need to think about?”

Louis sighed and wrapped his hands around Harry’s neck, slowly pulling at the loose strands of hair that lay there.

“I’m really happy right now. I’m happy with you and I’m excited to walk through those doors with you. Can we talk about my stupid freak out later? I don’t want to ruin this moment.”

Harry looked in his eyes and his expression softened with a nod. He leaned down and gently kissed Louis, soft enough that it almost wasn’t a kiss at all. More of a promise for what was to come, not just later today, but forever more.

“So, how about we go get married,” Louis said.

“Yeah, let’s go do that.”

 


	2. The Reception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fiascos of the morning, Louis and harry are finally married. But that does't mean they're in the clear yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo updating in a week turned into updating in three months somehow. I am forever sorry but here you go now

Harry had never been happier. He was a disgusting cliche, like some blushing bride that wouldn’t stop smirking. He tried (and failed) to not cling to Louis like an overprotective koala. Fortunately, Louis didn’t seem to mind all that much. 

The ceremony had been the first (and quite possibly last) flawless part of the day. No one forgot what they were doing or saying, everyone cried during the vows and cheered when they kissed. It had been a little weird to have people taking photos of them together, but it was nice. Of course, the photo’s could never be seen by anyone who wasn't already aware of the wedding, but it was still nice to know that they had them for themselves, if no one else. 

After the ceremony, everyone been lead almost instantly to the hall where the reception would be held. It was a beautiful, large space. The walls were painted a soft, golden yellow that complimented the cream pillars and ceiling. There was a small, detailed fresco on the ceiling, painted with light blues and soft pinks, with a gold chandelier coming down from the middle of it. Large, arching windows stood at the far end of the room. The windows showed a view of a neat, green courtyard rather than the bustling front entrance. They were assured that absolutely no unauthorised personnel would be able to get into the hall or the court yard or really anywhere in the hotel, so the risk of someone seeing their celebrations was removed. 

A string quartet played gentle music in the corner on a small, raised platform. Harry quite liked the sound of them, but he was more looking forward to later on when they would just play their own music from large speakers that were being set up in the corner of the hall. Liam had arranged some wedding playlist that was most likely going to be shit. Luckily, Harry could get rid of that and play music from his own phone whenever he wanted. Across from the musicians was the bar where Liam had already sat himself. He most likely wouldn’t move from there much for the rest of the day. 

The marble floor had mostly been cleared of furniture with the exception of a few chairs and small tables resting at the side of the room. Later on, the hall would be transformed and filled with tables for the meal. For now, waiters wandered through the guests, offering appetizers and champagne. 

It made Harry a little sad. The hall was so large and stunning, it begged to be filled with an abundance of people, laughing and talking. Instead, less than twenty guests milled about the empty space. 

He refused to let himself think of that. He had just gotten married and all his most favourite people had been there to share it with him, how could he ask for more? Everything was gorgeous and happy, Harry was not about to let that change. 

“I think we’re about to go take the photo’s,” Louis said with a nod towards the courtyard where the photographer was setting up. 

Harry nodded and they made their way outside. The photographer took photos of them together in different positions, some sitting on a bench, some standing against the deep green hedges, some leaning against the pillars. 

Harry found it even weirder than the pictures from earlier. During the ceremony, he had been vaguely aware of cameras snapping away, now he was looking straight at a camera, smiling and holding hands with Louis. It was almost hard to lose himself in the moment, to just be happy when a lens was pointed at him. Smiling for photo shoots was certainly nothing new for Harry, he did it practically every other day. But now he was being told to look at Louis more, to act more in love. It was the exact opposite of what he had been told for the past five years. 

“Are you okay?” Louis asked him quietly when the photos of their small, sort of odd wedding party were being taken. 

“Yeah, this is just sort of weird, isn’t it? We’re actually being told to look in love and stuff in front of other people.”

“I know, it’s pretty odd,” Louis agreed. He paused, looking over at where their mums were currently getting their pictures taken together. “I’m a little scared, to be honest,” he said, almost silently. 

“Why?”

“I’m just worried that this isn’t enough. We get to have today where we can be ourselves, then it’s back to reality where we’ve always got to have at least one person standing between us. I want it to be like it is right now, forever.” 

Harry sighed deeply and leaned his head on Louis.

“Can we just get married everyday?” Harry commented. “Then we never have to face reality again.”

Louis laughed softly. 

“I think Liam would probably have a heart attack in less than a week if we tried to put him through this again.” 

“That’s true, we better give him at least a week off,” Harry laughed. 

They watched everyone else standing for photographs, the well trained faces of their best men easily falling in and out of photogenic smiles. 

“I love you, Lou,” Harry hummed softly. 

“Well that’s a relief. I was beginning to worry dedicating five years of my life to you, getting multiple couples tattoo’s, and displaying our love in front of our family in a legal binding way was all for shit.”

“I Know, I know, I just realised I’ve not actually said that to you today. With all that’s happened, I don’t want to lose sight of what today is really about. I love you, I love everyone here and I’m proud of it.” 

“I love you too, now stop being such a sap and kiss me.”

Harry didn’t wait to be told twice. 

***

Watching Harry and Louis being all sloppy and gross was a strong reminder of one of the many things Zayn didn’t miss about One Direction. As much as he loved them both and was thrilled that they were happy, he was rather pleased that he didn’t have to watch them being nauseatingly married for too long. Poor Liam and Niall were going to have a rough couple of weeks as they got through the worst of the honeymoon phase. 

Zayn was sat against the wall, chatting with one of Louis’ sisters about how beautiful the ceremony had been when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Zayn turned around and was surprised to see Harry standing behind him without Louis. 

"Dance with me, Zayn," demanded Harry with a smile. Zayn just looked at him.

"Why? No one else is dancing."

"So? There's music playing, we may as well get this party started."

"Why dance with me, though? Aren't you supposed to do your whole first dance thing with Lou?"

Harry waved an arm in his face and shook his head.

"I can dance with him any old time. You're only here for a couple of days, I wanna make the most of it."

Zayn groaned loudly. He already knew Harry had won, he just wasn't quite ready to admit it yet. 

"C'mon, Zayn. You can't say no to a groom on his wedding day."

"Sure I can, in fact, I'm gonna say it right now. No Harry, I will not dance with you." 

Harry moaned and dragged a protesting Zayn right into the middle of the dance floor. He accepted defeat and allowed Harry to pull him forward until he was satisfied with their position on the floor.

"Can we at least dance to a decent song?" Zayn asked, the current cliche wedding ballad that was playing not being to his taste. 

"Fine, if you insist." Harry skipped off the docking station and flicked through the phone which was plugged into it. Zayn was pretty sure they were using Niall's phone and Harry didn't seem to approve of his music library. Eventually, he seemed happy enough and selected a song.

Harry ran back over to Zayn, wrapping his arms around his waist and spinning him around as the opening bars began to play. Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off". Zayn shrugged, there were much worse songs to dance to. 

They started off slow. Harry tugged at Zayn's hands in encouragement and Zayn just let himself be pulled whatever way Harry desired. When they got to the first chorus, Zayn decided he may as well let himself get into it. He started doing every lame dance move he could possibly think of. Harry seemed thrilled at this development and began throwing himself all over the place like a god damn cooked noodle. It was a pretty hilarious contrast, Harry lose with his long limbs, Zayn stiff and much smaller, yet they were both insanely awkward dancers. 

By the second chorus, they were laughing too much to actually be dancing. Instead, they just clung to each other and spun around until they were close to falling over with dizziness. Harry grabbed Zayn's arms and threw him around until one of his shoes fell off. With a cackle of laughter, Zayn kicked off his other shoe and started slipping across the floor in his socks, Harry clutching at him so he didn’t end up flat on his arse. 

“I’m gonna lift you up,” Harry half yelled as they began to near the end of the song. 

“You better not drop me. If you drop me I’ll fucking kill you, I don’t care if it’s your wedding.” 

“I won’t drop you, I promise.” 

Zayn must of momentarily lost all forms of sanity and he let Harry lift him. For half a second, Harry had him in the air and they were once again laughing a twirling and having fun. Then Harry stumbled over his own clown feet and plummeted forward. 

He didn’t just drop Zayn. He pretty much plunged him into a nose dive, causing him to crash heavily into the hard marble floor. It took a couple of seconds of shock before it occurred to Zayn that he should be angry. He stared up at Harry (Who had conveniently managed to regain his footing after chucking Zayn to the floor) and glared at him in what he hoped was a sufficiently threatening manner. 

Zayn shifted himself to get up and throttle Harry when he felt a searing pain coming from his ankle. He yelped slightly and froze. 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Harry asked, a little desperately, as he leaned down next to Zayn.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I must of just gone over my ankle a little. Help me up.” 

Harry did as he was told and laced his arms around Zayn. Even with the support of Harry, Zayn was in agony and he couldn’t help but cry out again. 

“Fuck, fuck. Harry, put me down!” Harry placed him back down on the floor (with more delicacy than he had before) and hovered over him. Zayn pulled up his trouser leg above his left ankle and looked down on it. It was already swelling significantly and looked like it would bruise. 

“Harry, what the fuck have you done to me?” He cried through gritted teeth. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’ll go find Jay, she can help.” 

Harry ran off, in search of Louis’ mum while a small crowd began to form around Zayn, muttering incredibly unhelpful things. Zayn tried to block them out and ignore the pain until Harry reappeared with Jay. 

She knelt over his ankle, turning it various different ways with cool, gentle hands. She put pressure on different areas, asking what hurt. All of it. It all hurt. After a few more questions, she looked up at him with a frown. 

“I think it’s sprained, maybe even broken. You need to get to a hospital and get it checked out.”

Zayn looked up at the group that hovered around him and through tears of pain, he managed to find Harry who looked as if he might cry too. That boy was dead. 

***  
Louis had hoped that the moment of bliss which had occurred during the ceremony would last for the rest of their wedding day. Instead, it was shattered rapidly as Zayn was wheeled out of the hotel to the nearest hospital. 

His parting scowl towards Harry had clearly expressed his desires to murder him and Louis could even be angry at Zayn for it. As a matter of fact, on any other day, Louis quite possibly would of helped Zayn in said murder, but right now, Harry needed Louis’ protection more than anything. 

The look Liam was giving Harry was almost as terrifying as Zayn’s. Liam had taken on a considerable amount of stress today and it didn’t seem to be over for him yet.

“Fucking hell, Harry,” Liam groaned. “Couldn’t you at least of dropped someone that we’ve seen more than once in months? Why couldn’t you of dropped Niall? He’s fucked up so much today, he deserves it much more than Zayn.”

“Hey!” Niall began to protest, but then he stopped and thought for a second. “Actually, that’s fair enough, I can’t really argue against you. I do sort of deserve it more than Zayn. Unless this is Harry’s payback for Zayn leaving...” 

“This isn’t about who deserves it and who doesn’t. It was an accident, okay? Harry didn’t intentionally break Zayn’s ankle on his wedding day for fucks sake," said Louis.

They both left them alone after that and Louis turned to Harry, beginning his attempt to comfort him after what had just happened. 

“What was I thinking, Lou? Why did I lift him like that?” Harry cried, the agony in his voice clear.

“Fucking hell, Harry. He’s just hurt his ankle, the bloke’s not dead.” 

Harry didn’t seem to hear him as he just buried his head in his hands and groaned. He decided to leave Harry to his misery, just for a moment, to go and get some food for both of them. 

Louis made his way over a table that was filled with stupidly small food and started filling a plate for Harry and him. As he went to grab some unknown substance wrapped in pastry, he noticed a pair of legs sticking out from underneath the table. A second glance at the shoes informed him of who the legs belonged to. 

“Liam, what are you doing under a table?” Louis asked with an amused frown. 

Liam jumped when he heard his voice and hit his head off the table while trying to stand up. 

“Louis. Uhm, hey.” He mumbled as he got to his feet. “You haven’t seen your sister anywhere, have you?”

“Why? Which one?”

“Phoebe. We’re playing hide and seek.”

“Well, if you’re playing hide and seek, I couldn’t tell you where she was even if I knew.”

“Yeah, it’s just she’s a little too good at hiding, y’know?” Liam said with a nervous laugh. 

“How long have you been looking for her?”

“Uhm, what time is it?”

“4.30.”

“Oh, well then. I’ve been looking for about half an hour now.”

Later on, Louis would be proud of himself for not losing his shit in that exact moment.

“Are you telling me that you’ve lost my little sister in a large hotel in a foreign city?”

“Well, I, I guess that’s one way to put it,” Liam mumbled. 

Louis turned away from him sharply and went to go find someone competent to help him, the chances of finding a person who fit that description was slim in this room. 

He thought the best course of action was to locate his mum and find out if she had seen Phoebe. 

“She was playing with Liam, last time I saw her, ask him where she is,” she said to Louis.

“No, that’s the problem. They were playing hide and seek and now he’s lost her.” 

“Lost her? How long has he been looking for her?”

“Half an hour.”

“Oh. Right, well we should go around and ask everyone if they’ve seen her.” 

She was alarmingly calm and held together as she walked away towards a group of guests that stood next to them. Her constant chillness was most certainly not a trait Louis had inherited. 

He went back and forth, asking their families, employees of the hotel, security, and management if they had seen her. They all had the same slightly alarmed but hopeless look in their eye before ensuring him that they would keep a look out for her. Security was set to finding Phoebe when they realised that no one had seen her and the hotel staff were told about her disappearance too. 

Louis knew that logically, he shouldn’t panic all that much. Phoebe was sensible, she wouldn’t have left the building, she would most likely be hiding somewhere, completely unaware of the worry she was causing. Unfortunately, Louis didn’t do logical, so freaking out and almost killing Liam was the way forward. 

The one sort of good thing to come of it was that Harry had snapped out of his distress over Zayn to instead try to comfort Louis in his distress over Phoebe. 

“What do you want me to do, Lou? Do you want me to help everyone else search or should I stay with you?” He asked softly while rubbing at Louis’ back. 

“I want you to get Liam away from me before I kill him,” Louis groaned. 

Harry looked up and saw Liam standing near the door of the hall, walking in circles and looking for something to do while also trying very hard to avoid Louis’ stare. 

“I’ll deal with him,” Niall said with a pat on Louis’ shoulders. 

He walked over to Liam and grabbed his arm. After a few exchanged words, Niall pulled Liam out of the room, presumably taking him to search some corner of the hotel. 

Louis sighed heavily. With Liam out of the way, he could stop focusing on killing something and start focusing on finding his sister. 

***  
Niall and Liam were on corridor duty. They went up and down the many levels of the hotels, walking briskly along hallways in hopes of finding Phoebe.

Liam looked horrified. He went around shouting Phoebe’s name and pissing off pretty much everyone else in the hotel. Niall felt bad for him, the poor bloke had been worrying about today for weeks. He was pretty sure that even in Liam’s worst case scenario for the wedding, he never lost Louis’ sister in a large hotel. 

Walking around corridors wasn’t really all that productive a thing to do, but it gave Liam something to do other than throwing himself of the roof, so Niall was okay with helping him keep up the illusion of work. 

As they made their way down the fourth floor once more, Liam’s phone began to go off. Liam never even seemed to notice that it was ringing as he just continued swiftly walking down to hall with sweat dripping down his face. 

“Liam, are you gonna answer that?” Niall asked. 

Liam looked at him, confused, when he finally seemed to realise the ringing that was coming from his pocket. He pulled his phone out too quickly and dropped it on the floor. By the time he picked it up, the ringing had stopped. 

“Fucking hell, this just keeps getting worse!” Liam shouted.

“Calm down, mate. You can just call whoever it was back, it’s no big deal.”

“No that’s not it, look at my fucking phone.” 

Liam handed Niall his phone which sported had a brand new lightning shaped crack down the left side of the screen. Niall clicked at the home button and the screen still lit up. 

“It still works, Liam. It’s okay.”

“But now the picture looks fucking awful with a massive split down the screen!” 

Niall could of pointed out that Liam was in fact a millionaire who could easily get the screen repaired or buy a new phone, but he knew that wasn't really the point. The point was that pretty much everything was going wrong for Liam. 

“Look, you’ve got a missed call from Zayn, you better call him back.” 

Liam seemed to snap out of his own mind and grabbed his phone back to call Zayn. Niall listened to Liam talking rapidly and tried to decipher what Zayn might be saying on the other end. 

“What’s wrong with it?” Liam asked. “Are you going to be okay?...Will you be able to fly home?...When can you get back here, we need you...Yeah, Louis’ sister has gone missing...About forty five minutes...I’ve got to go, I’ll call you back later. Bye.” 

He hung up and buried his face in his hands. 

“Is he okay?” Niall asked.

“His ankle is sprained, they’re bandaging it up and stuff at the moment. He should be back here in an hour or so.” Liam told him. The news that Zayn was pretty much okay seemed to be a momentary comfort to him, but then he remembered what they were attempting to do and his face changed back into a panicky, sweaty mess. 

“Seven things.” Liam muttered manically. “I predicted seven main things that could go wrong today. Zayn spraining his ankle and Louis’ sister going missing was not on that list.”

“What was?” Niall asked.

“Harry or Louis getting cold feet, Zayn or their families not landing in time, the rings going missing, the flowers getting screwed up, the photographer not turning up, catering going wrong, and the secret wedding thing getting out.”

“Really? Those were your worst case scenario’s? I mean, c’mon Liam. This is us we’re talking about, of course bad shit was gonna happen.” 

“Two of these things has gone wrong so far. Luckily, the cold feet thing was solved and Zayn was able to sort of fix the ring problem. Everyone turned up on time, the flowers were okay, we have a photographer.” Liam sounded like he was going through a checklist in his head, ticking off the things that had gone right and wrong, arranging them into piles. “The fan’s sort of know about the wedding, but no one’s really taking it seriously. The only thing left is catering.” 

Niall turned rigid. It had completely escaped his mind. Liam was going to kill him, slowly and painfully. 

“What.” Liam demanded when he saw Niall standing there, frozen. “Holy fuck, you forgot to book catering, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly,” Niall said, slowly. “I did book them about a week ago. Only thing is, the told me I had to call them to confirm the address for the venue and stuff at least twelve hours before they were due to arrive.”

“You didn’t do this.”

“Nope.”

“And what did they say would happen if you didn’t call them twelve hours before?”

“Uhm, they wouldn’t turn up and there would be no refund.” 

Liam glowered at Niall and Niall flinched a little, expecting Liam to smack him across the jaw or something. Instead, Liam decided to go for a verbal attack. 

“What the fuck is your problem, Niall? Every single fuckign responsibility that you’ve been given has been fucked up. I don’t get how one person can do so much wrong, it’s embarrassing just to be standing next to you. I shouldn’t of let Harry and Louis give you so much responsibility in the first place, you should of been the one stuck in that shitty, pointless interview, not me. I should of been going out and doing the actual important things while you stayed out of the way.” 

Liam’s voice was beyond harsh. He punctuated every word in a way that was specifically meant to hurt Niall as much as possible

“Hold the fuck up. You know what the worst things that have happened today are, and I think that everyone else would agree? The mob at the cake shop, Louis running away, Zayn spraining his ankle, and you losing Phoebe,” Niall shouted, listing the things off on his fingers. “You know how many of those things were my fault? Zero. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of them.” 

“Of course, just blame everyone else instead of admitting you’ve fucked up time and again,” Liam growled back. “It’s just so much easier to shout at other people instead of admitting your own problems, isn’t it, Niall?”

Niall wasn’t really conscious of his hand clenching into a fist by his side. He also wasn’t aware of said fist moving up towards Liam until it impacted against the left side of his face. Niall didn’t have a particularly strong punch, as a matter of fact, it was pretty pathetic, especially against a brick like Liam. The punch probably hurt Niall’s hand more than Liam’s face, but it made Liam snap out of his rage and gave him a look in his eyes that was the closest thing to normality Niall had seen in him all day. 

Niall was about to apologise, but he didn’t know how long it would be before Liam would turn back into an ogre of madness, so he thought he better get his point in quickly before that could happen. 

“I know I’ve fucked up a lot and I feel like absolute shit about it. I already feel like I’ve let everyone down and ruined their wedding, I don’t need you shouting at me to remind me of that,” Niall started, trying to keep his voice a lot calmer than it previously had been. “And it’s not me that’s blaming everyone else for my fuck ups, it’s you. Can you please just accept that you’re human and you did something stupid and now you’ve got to do what you can to fix it without making one of your best friends feel like a useless piece of crap?”

Liam stared at him for a moment, standing stiff and defensive, before turning away and heading back towards the stairs they had come from. 

“This is fucking pointless,” Liam muttered, some sharpness still in his voice, but not nearly as much. “Roaming around corridors isn’t going to achieve anything.” 

Niall didn’t know where Liam was going, and he had a feeling Liam didn’t know either, but he thought it was best to follow him.

Liam stalked along the corridor then down the stairs, gaining speed as he went. Niall did his best to keep up as Liam began to practically run down the steps. He thought that maybe he was trying to get rid of him, but something about the line of Liam’s shoulders suggested that there was something else going on. 

He kept running until they got the the ground floor, then he ran across the lobby until he came to the toilets. Niall ran after him, beginning to worry, and walked into the toilets just as Liam was bending over one of them, throwing up. 

“Oh my god, Liam, are you okay?” Niall asked. It was a pretty stupid question, the man was vomiting over a toilet for Christ’s sake, of course he wasn’t okay, he just didn’t have any clue as to what else to say or do. 

“‘m fine,” Liam moaned in between puking. “It’s just...I may of been drinking since eleven this morning and all I’ve had to eat is a piece of toast, also the stress and stuff doesn’t help.” 

“Holy shit, Liam,” Niall sighed. It all made a lot more sense now, Liam was always either an emotional drunk or an angry one, today he has sort of been both. 

Niall heard someone come out of a cubicle from next to them and he prepare himself for some guy shouting at them for the vomiting or something. Instead, he turned around to find a girl wearing frilly blue dress staring at him.

“Phoebe? What are you doing in the men's bathroom?” Niall asked when he realised who it was, both relief and confusion consumed him. 

“This is actually the girls bathroom,” she told him. “I thought it would be a good hiding place cause Liam wouldn’t come in here.”

“Well it worked,” Liam said, pulling himself away from the toilet momentarily and sounding (and looking) like an exhausted shell of a man who had spent his whole life on a quest to find the missing girl. “Everyone was so worried.”

“Why? I’ve only been hiding here for like, ten minutes.”

“You’ve been missing for almost an hour,” Niall informed her, but he was interrupted by the sound of Liam’s sick hitting the side of the toilet once more. 

“Is he okay? He isn’t sick cause of me, is he?” Phoebe asked. 

“Nah, he’s just a paranoid drunk is all,” said Niall. Liam lifted his middle finger towards Niall as he continued to chuck his guts up over the toilet. 

“I better get you back to your brother,” Niall continued, ignoring Liam. 

He walked with Phoebe back to the hall and found Louis pacing back and forth with Harry by his side, trying to comfort him. When Louis saw them walking over to him, he ran to meet them and hugged his sister. 

“Where were you?” He cried as he clutched to Phoebe. 

“Just in the bathroom, you’d think that would be one of the first places you’d check, but whatever,” she said. 

Louis took out his phone and, presumably, texted everyone who was looking for her to tell them she had been found. 

“Where’s Liam?” He asked when he suddenly became aware of his absence. 

“Oh, he’s just dying in the toilets, he’ll be fine,” Niall told him, lightheartedly. “I better go check on him, actually. Don’t suppose any of you have any food on you, do you? Something dry?” 

“I have these,” Harry said, pulling a small packet of biscuits from his pocket. 

“Yeah, that should do.” Niall took the biscuits and headed back to Liam, deciding that telling harry and Louis about the catering problem could wait a little longer. 

When he got back to the bathroom, Liam was sitting slouched against the cubicle door. He looked awful, but he seemed more pale than green now, which was hopefully a good thing. 

“Here, eat these,” Niall said, chucking him the biscuits.

“Eating is the absolute last thing I want to do right now.”

“It’ll help, you’re the one who said you hadn’t eaten all day. Besides, this could be the only food you get all day if I don’t sort of catering.” 

Liam slowly nibbled at one of the biscuits before taking a small sip from the water Niall had also brought him.

Niall perched himself against the sinks, watching Liam slowly eating and drinking and regaining a trace of colour in his cheeks. 

“Sorry I hit you,” Niall said after a few minutes. “I didn’t really plan it or anything, just sort of happened.”

“It’s cool, I deserved it,” said Liam. Niall nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, you sort of did.” 

“I’m sorry about everything I said, really sorry. I didn’t even know I could be that mean.”

Niall shrugged. He couldn’t just say it was okay when it had hurt to hear Liam say what he had. 

“You were just telling the truth, I guess.” 

“No, no I wasn’t. I was pissed off with myself and you were right, I didn’t want to admit that I screwed up so I took it out on you instead.” Liam breathed in heavily and took another sip of water. “Let me make it up to you, let me help you sort of catering.”

Niall laughed.

“The two of us trying to fix a problem? After everything that’s happened today, do you think that’s such a good idea?” 

“Probably not. But so far, everything’s sort of worked out in the end, even if it’s been in a pretty weird way. What have we got to lose at this point?” 

“Alright then. Let’s do this.” Niall stood up and slowly, so did Liam. “Where do we start?”   
***  
A quick call to the caterer confirmed that they definitely would not be able to the wedding, confirming what they had already known. Liam and Niall, assisted with the help of Lucy from management, then went through a phone book, calling pretty much every caterer in the city and offering them an alarming amount of money to feed them all. Every reply was the same, they were sorry but they just couldn’t prepare a three course meal for a group of people at such short notice. 

They then took to calling as many restaurants as possible, starting with the fanciest, most expensive ones and working their way down. It seemed that the entire city was working against them as not a single restaurant could offer them a space, not even when promised heaps of cash. 

“I’m sorry sir, but what you are askign is impossible,” the manager of the restaurant that Liam was currently attempting to book told him. “If it were a case of booking a large table, I may be able to sort something out, but you are asking me to empty our entire building of all customers.”

“I already told you, I’ll pay you triple the amount you would make if all your customers were there.”

“This is not just about the money. Some of our customers book tables months in advance and we have a reputation to uphold. If we become known as an establishment that lets down their customers at the last moment without explanation, it would be a catastrophe.” 

“I understand,” Liam said miserably. 

“Listen,” continued the manager, lowering his voice slightly. “You say we cannot tell anyone you are dining with us, but if you were perhaps willing to maybe tweet about our restaurant, maybe let a couple of pictures of you be taken outside, maybe then we could come to some sort of agreement?” 

Liam sighed. He had told the manager, like he had told all of them, who he was at the start of the phone call and asked them to promise their secrecy. Unfortunately, it was this requirement that made it so hard to find anywhere that would take them. 

Liam knew that when money didn’t work, his name usually did, but he couldn’t use that right now. No one could know about all of One Direction and two of their families celebrating a wedding in a restaurant. Privacy was of the utmost importance. 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Sorry to have taken up your time.” Liam hung up and scored another name off the list in the phonebook they were using. 

“No luck?” Lucy asked. Liam shook his head. 

“God. Why are there no dodgy restaurant managers in Amsterdam willing to accept loads of money no questions asked?” Niall complained, throwing his head down on the table they were all sat at. 

Liam just dialled the next number and began his repetitive speech to the person down the line, asking if he could speak to the manager, telling them who he is, what he wants and how much he’ll pay. The long and dull cycle of back and forth began. 

Niall still had his head leaning against the table and was letting out a low, continuous groan until Liam kicked his shin under the table. He shut up, but didn’t lift his head for another minute until he jumped up and yelled “Fuck it.” 

“What is it?” Lucy asked, looking at him like she believed Niall had been struck with the answer to all their problems. 

“This is fuckign pointless, just get me the phone number to the nearest McDonald’s and let’s do this shit.” 

“Are you serious?” Liam asked, hanging up hte phone, already knowing that the call would end the same way as the others had. 

Niall was already flipping through the phonebook, looking for McDOnalds.

“Oh my god, I think he is serious,” said Lucy with a look of horror. 

 

“Have either of you got a better idea? Clearly everyone in this city has too much class and doesn’t give a shit about money. But you know what global superpower has no class and cares an awful lot about money no matter where in the world they are? Fucking McDonald’s, that’s what.” 

“We absolutely cannot continue the reception for our best friends wedding in McDonald’s,” Liam protested. 

“Why not? Everyone loves McDonald’s.”

“No, Niall. There is no way this can happen.”

“Fine.” Niall said, slamming down his phone. “How about we go ask the groom’s themselves? I think they ought to be the ones to make the decision, don’t you?” 

“Fine.” Liam agreed. 

They ran off to find Harry and Louis who were situated near the bar, as close to each other as they could possibly get while still fully clothed. It wasn’t until they were stood next to the newlyweds that Niall and Liam both remembered they hadn’t even told them there was a problem with catering yet. 

“Uhm, so. This thing has happened and we’re fixing it, hopefully. Niall’s got this idea but I think it’s a stupid idea but what do you guys think?” Liam stammered. 

“Please tell me no one else is missing or has broken a bone,” Harry groaned.

“No, not again, also no one’s actually broken a bone tonight, but anyway,” said Niall. “I fucked up with catering and basically, we have no food coming. I’m so sorry, I am officially the worst best man that has ever existed, I’ve ruined everything and I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to making up for it.” 

“Niall, just tell us your idea and worry about the eternal repayment thing later,” said Louis. 

“Right, well we called a bunch of other caterers and restaurants but no one would take us. So then I thought, who would be willing to take a load of money in exchange for secrecy and food? McDonald’s.” 

Louis and Harry both looked at him with irritatingly similar hard to read expression. 

“I told him it’s ridiculous, but he insisted on telling you anyway,” Liam said, smugly, deciding to read Louis and Harry’s expressions as disapproval toward Niall. 

They both ignored him and Louis turned to Harry with pleading eyes. 

“Please can we get McDonald’s to cater our wedding?” He begged Harry. 

“Well, everyone loves McDonald’s, don’t they? And I guess it beats that gross lamb Liam was going to make up eat. Why not?” Harry smiled. 

Liam was more than disappointed. This was absolutely not the magical, romantic wedding he had pictured, but then he had to remind himself once more that this was not his wedding. What Harry and Louis wanted had to come first, even if what they wanted was stupid. 

“Fine. I’ll go arrange it,’ Liam grumbled, walking back to their phonebook with Niall practically skipping next to him. 

They got the number for the nearest McDonald’s and called them. 

“Right then,” Niall started, cracking his knuckles after putting his phone on speaker. “Let’s get to it then. I’m Niall Horan and I want to hire out your McDonald’s for the night for a party. You would have to kick everyone else out within the next half hour and not let any more customers in. No one can know who is in the building and all your staff will be sworn to secrecy. Unlimited food will be provided and you will allow us to bring large amounts of alcohol. In return for all of this, we will pay you an absolute buttload of money. Name your price and I’ll double it.”

There was silence from the other end of the phone until a timid voice said “I’m sorry? I don’t speak English.” 

Niall swore and handed his phone to Lucy who then, presumably, repeated Niall’s speech in Dutch. 

They both listened, trying to gain an indication of how it was going based on her expression and tone. After a few minutes negotiations, she hung up. 

“They said yes. You’ve got to pay them about enough money to buy a large island, but you’ve got your food.” 

After a brief moment fo celebration, they realised they still had a considerable amount of work to do. They had to get drinks and decorations to the McDonald's, which would be easy enough. Then they would have to stagger their arrival, making sure no one caught on to them all going to the same place. Everyone would have to take different cars and arrive at least fifteen minutes after the group before them. 

Lucy set to arranging the logistics of it all while Niall and Liam acted busy, helping to pack up some of the drinks they would take. 

“At my wedding, I’m gonna just have tables that are filled with loads of food from different fast food places. One for McDonald’s, one for KFC, one for Pizza Hut, you get the idea,” Niall told Liam as he boxed up a bottle of whisky.

“Remind me not to come to your wedding,” replied Liam. “As a matter of fact, remind me to never go to any wedding again, not even my own. I’ve had enough to last a life time.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not been that bad. Anyways, I’m giving you zero responsibilities at my wedding, which is also the amount of responsibilities I am giving myself. Neither of us should ever have anything to do with wedding planning ever again.”

“Yes, we’re retiring from the wedding business forever more after today. We can get Harry and Louis to be our best men, then they can learn what it’s like to go through all this.”

“Sounds like a good idea, but I call Louis. I don’t want Harry being my best man and just have him spending all the time we’re together talking about the joys of marriage and what a glorious experience it is and stuff like that.”

“Oh shit, he’s going to be like that forever more, isn’t he? I don’t want to deal with that on my wedding day either.”

“Fine, you have Zayn as your best man then. He’s gotten off pretty easy with this whole thing. Sure, he’s sprained his ankle, but he’s not had to arrange anything, he can make up for it with you.”

“Wouldn’t that be sort of weird? I mean, your best man being a guy you’ve been casually fucking for the past five years?” 

“Yeah, fair enough. You get Louis, I get Zayn, Harry can sit in the corner and cry with our mums.”

“Deal. Glad we’ve got that sorted. Now let's get to McDonald’s.” 

***  
Louis was the last to arrive. By the time he got there, everyone was already making their way through an abundance of burgers and drinks.

 

Liam and Niall had done their best to decorate the place, mostly with enough balloons to supply twenty kids birthday parties. They must have raided a party shop on their way there because plastic banners which read read “Congratulations!” and “Just Married” and outrageous amounts of bunting were to be found everywhere. 

There were also bags of cheap confetti sat on all the tables, which had been covered in white, cheap table clothes. The windows had been covered up with cardboard to prevent anyone from being able to see in and they had disguised the cardboard with drapings of cloth and fake flowers as well as even more balloons. 

Louis was a little in love with how stupid and tacky it all was. They filled the space much better than they had in the overlarge hotel and everyone looked much more at ease in the new setting. It made their lack of number seem much less significant which made for a more enjoyable experience overall. 

He made his way over to the till where overwhelmed and confused looking staff stood waiting, and began to order a meal when he felt a hand resting on his back. 

“I already order for you,” Harry said from behind him, handing him a tray filled with food. 

Louis looked over what he’d ordered quickly, a big mac, twelve chicken nuggets, two packets of large fries, a happy meal, and two beers. 

“You know me too well, Harold,” Louis said with a satisfied nod. 

Harry smiled as they sat down at an empty table, obviously pleased with his decision. 

“So, anything interesting happened since I last saw you twenty minutes ago?” Louis asked as he grabbed one of the beers and the happy meal. 

“No, actually. No broken bones or lost sisters or missing rings, it’s been rather boring.”

“Maybe it’s cause we were apart, maybe we’re cursed or something and shit only goes wrong when we’re together? We’re cursed or something.”

“Not possible,” Harry said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think you can enjoy being cursed this much, and even if we are, everyone around us will just have to deal with terrible things happening cause I’m not leaving you.”

Louis failed at trying not grin like an idiot. He tried to focus on chewing a chicken nugget to minimise his stupidly big smile. It was starting to work until Harry froze while lifting a chip to his mouth. 

“We’re married,” Harry whispered. “You’re my husband, and I’m yours.” 

It took Louis a moment to realise exactly what Harry had just said and what it meant. 

“Husband,” Louis repeated, quietly. Neither of them had actually said the word out loud before. It had a beautifully bizarre feeling on Louis’ lips.

“We’re a proper couple now,” said Harry. 

“We’ve always been a proper couple,” Louis replied. 

“Yeah, but we’re like a package deal now. The Tomlinson’s, buy one get one free.”

“That’s not all that different from how it’s been for years,” Louis laughed. “Except now we’ve got the title to go with it.”

Harry smiled and they both stopped talking for a bit. Louis ate away at the chicken nuggets while Harry took the toy out of his happy meal and began fiddling with it. 

“What if I just changed my name to Harry Tomlinson on twitter? What would even happen?” Harry questioned after a moment. 

“Everyone would freak out, management would say you were hacked and you would probably be fired. Also I wouldn’t let you do it in the first place.” 

“Oh c’mon, don’t be a buzzkill,” Harry smiled, tangling himself around Louis. 

“I’m not, I was just about to say I would make you change it to Harry Tomlinson Styles instead, that way I can change my name as well and we can do it together.” 

Harry’s smile grew even larger than before, the sight of it made Louis smile back. He still didn’t believe that they actually belonged to each other, even after several years, it was still so new. He hoped that never changed. 

“You know, we could actually do it, change our names on twitter. Sure, they’d change it back instantly and we’d get in so much trouble for it, but so what?” Louis said, remembering what Zayn had said earlier about management making life hell for them, but they just have to make it worse for management.” 

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, what’s the worst they could do? They’ll never kick you out the band and they probably wouldn’t do that to me either now it’s just the four of us.”   
Harry considered it for a moment and shrugged. 

 

“I suppose we could, but let’s wait awhile. I don’t want to be shouted at for breaking the rules right now, we’ve got to try and enjoy the peace for as long as it lasts.” 

Louis nodded in agreement and was about to move the conversation onto another matter when he heard a shout coming from the kitchen. Everyone around them stopped talking and turned towards the kitchen, listening. There was a further shout of “No! No, you can’t come in!” followed by a crash as the manager came out of the kitchen. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” he cried. “There is a man trying to get into the back door, I told him to leave but he claims to be a guest.”

“That’s because I am a guest you fucking wanker!” Came a muffled yell from somewhere in the back. 

“Zayn?” Louis called out, recognising the voice instantly. He rushed up and pushed his way passed the manager.

Louis made his was passed the confused employees to a back door where someone in a McDonald's uniform was holding their arms out, stopping Zayn from getting passed. Zayn was was whacking at them with a crutch and yelling insults. 

"Let him in," Louis said and the employee did as they were told. Zayn looked momentarily alarmed before he saw Louis and smiled quickly before his frown returned.

“What is going on? Why the fuck are we in McDonald’s?” He demanded. 

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Short version, I’m not standing around here any longer.”

 

“Right, well basically, Niall’s a fuck up.” 

Zayn seemed satisfied with this answer and nodded before trying to make his way over to Louis on his crutches. 

“Shit, are you okay, do you need a hand?” Louis asked, hovering around Zayn. 

“Clearly I’m not okay and it’s a working ankle I need, not a hand.” 

Louis stepped back to give Zayn enough space to hobble around him, but Zayn stopped moving and sighed when he was next to Louis. 

“Sorry I’m being such a shit,” he said. “It’s just, spraining your ankle at your best mate’s wedding has a way of putting you in a bad mood.”

“It’s okay. I can’t exactly blame you for it, if it was me, I’d probably be punching everyone who came near me.” 

“I’m considering doing just that, so don’t push me.” 

Louis laughed softly and took Zayn’s arm to help him through the door.

“Zayn, I know he deserves it but please don’t kill my husband tonight,” Louis said as they walked. “Next time you see him you have my blessing to hurt him in whichever manner you feel is fit, but just don’t tonight?”

“Alright,” Zayn said, somewhat reluctantly. “I have a feeling Harry will feel so guilty about the whole thing that I won’t even need to do anything to him.” 

“Thanks, mate. Now come and enjoy the rest of my wedding.”  
***  
The pro’s of having left the band far outweighed the con’s for Zayn. For example, he could go where he wanted when he wanted, his schedule wasn’t decided a year in advance, if he wanted to spend the day at home he could do so without the fear of disappointing any fans. There were a whole lot more reasons that meant Zayn did not regret his decision to leave. 

But this, just sitting with his friends, laughing and exchanging stories about the day, this was what he missed so much that sometimes he wasn’t sure how to get by without it. Liam sitting on his left, Harry on his right, Niall and Louis sat opposite them. Louis and Harry both smiling at each other every ten seconds, and stroking the bracelets Zayn had made for them that they seemed to love. 

None of the heaviness between them that Zayn had feared so much, no one cutting him out of the stories all of them but Zayn had been a part of, but instead explaining them to him with animated expressions.

Without any form of warning, Zayn felt his eyes prick with tears. He tried to subtly rub at his eyes but the moment he did, his eyes just filled more with water that began to overflow. He bowed his head and scrunched up his eyes, trying to make it stop with no success. 

He felt a wave of some identifiable emotion come over him, unable to tell if he was happy or sad or somewhere inbetween. All he knew was that within seconds, he was bawling. 

“Zayn, are you okay?” Liam asked. 

“Shit, is he crying?” Niall added. 

“What’s wrong, what happened? Can I get you something,” said Harry. 

Their concerns only made him cry more, which made him feel like more of an idiot, which also made him cry more. 

“I’m sorry, I just really missed you guys, also this wedding has been beautiful, also stressful, also I sprained my ankle, also the doctor gave me some pretty strong pain killers and I think they’re making me a bit emotional,” Zayn sobbed. 

Niall practically lept across the table at him, throwing his arms around Zayn as he pulled his legs over so that his knees were resting on the table. Liam then crushed into Zayn’s side with a hug and Harry soon did the same from the other side, wrapping his arms around Zayn’s waist and resting his head against his shoulder. When Louis realised that he was once again missing out on a group hug, he quickly rushed around the table and positioned himself somewhere across all of their legs. 

They were all in the most bizarre position, Zayn in the middle being pressed on either side by Harry and Liam, Louis curling into Zayn’s lap, and Niall hovering over them with his legs still on the table. It should of been uncomfortable for all of them, but it wasn’t, it could never be when the five of them were together. 

“Do you feel better now?” Louis asked, looking up at Zayn. 

“Yes,” Zayn nodded,trying to regain control of his breathing. When he felt like he had it under control, another sob broke out. “No. No, I’m not better.” 

Liam, who was also crying by this point, squeezed closer to Zayn and pushed against his neck. 

“Don’t worry about it ending, just enjoy it while it lasts,” Liam said, displaying his ability to understand Zayn’s emotions before Zayn did. 

He was right, Zayn was terrified of this moment ending, of the wedding being over and him leaving again without the four of them by his side. It seemed that Louis realised this at the same time as Zayn did as he hid his face in Zayn's shirt and let out a quiet cry. Soon, they were all emitting various volumes of tears and clinging to each other far tighter than before.

"Fuck, we can't just sit around here crying at a wedding," said Niall after a few weepy minutes. "Liam's right, we need to enjoy this. we're all going to remember today no matter what, we may as well make it for all the right reasons." 

"Niall's right. No more crying," said Harry. "Let's dance or something."

"Harry, I am never dancing with you ever again," Zayn replied with a shake of his head. 

"We can dance together, that'll minimise the chances of me doing any serious harm to anyone," Harry added.

"How? There'll be more people, that means more things to bump into or hit or drop," said Louis.

"Louis, we're married now, that means you've got to agree with me on absolutely everything, I hope you understand that."

Louis just shrugged and accepted his fate, picking himself off Zayn's lap and rolling over to Harry so that the two of them could dance.  
Niall joined soon after and the three of them hopping about and laughing, entirely off beat. 

"C'mon, Zayn. In a few hours time you're going home? we're back on tour, and Louis and Harry go back to being single and straight. Let's have fun for now, create a memory so good it'll erase all the other crap of the day." Liam said, his arm wrapped around Zayn's neck, still leaning into him.

"Alright, but you've got to help me hop about or whatever, I can't dance at the best of times, much less with a sprained ankle."

"It's a deal," Liam said with a smile so sweet it almost hurt Zayn. 

They walked over to the others, Liam wrapping his arm around Zayn’s waist for support, encouraging Zayn to lean into him. They greeted both of them with cheers when they reached the space of clear floor that had been labeled as the dance floor. The five of them all clutched to each other, falling over their own feet, grasping at someone’s collar when they span around too fast and needed help rebalancing. 

They broke off into groups of two’s or three’s, switching around regularly so that they all got to dance with one another. Louis and Harry twirled slowly in circles to one song, which Niall and Liam mocked by dipping each other as Zayn laughed. They swayed together and pulled one another into spins and within a few songs, they were all in that weird state between laughing and crying, tears running down their cheeks and their jaws sore from smiling.

As it got later, Harry and Louis broke off from the rest of them, standing silently in the corner watching their ridiculous family enjoying themselves. The two of them stood, rubbing each others wedding bracelets, and thinking that despite it all, this still had to be the best day of their lives. 

 

Niall had drawn the short straw and was the last to deliver his speech. He sat nervously at his table, clutching his speech in his hand as Liam got off the table they had turned into a stage, everyone applauding as he did so. 

This was stupid, Niall had performed to crowds of hundreds of thousands, they had cheered and screamed his name and loved him. So why was he so terrified of reading off a sheet of paper to twenty people? 

Niall knew that he had to get up now and deliver the speech, but he thought that maybe if he just sat there very quietly, everyone would forget he existed. 

“Niall, you’re not the worst best man ever. I’ve heard about best men who have murdered the groom on his wedding day. Or one time, I was at this wedding and everyone found out during the reception that the best man had been sleeping with the bride for two years. So, you know, as long as you don’t kill anyone and keep your hands of Louis then we’re all good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never wrote any best man speeches cause writing them for all three of them would of been a nightmare but I did start writing Niall's so if anyone is interested in reading that I can post it as a wee drabble or something

**Author's Note:**

> The second part of this is gonna be about the reception and it should be posted in about a week.
> 
> Incase you didn't catch it, the title of this fic is a lyric from Fireproof cause that is the most amazing and underrated song on Four


End file.
